MARINATOS, SPYRIDON

born Nov. 4, 1901, Lixorion, Greece died Oct. 1, 1974, Thera in full Spyridon Nikolaou Marinatos Greek archaeologist whose most notable discovery was the site of an ancient port city on the island of Thera, in the southern Aegean Sea. The city, the name of which was not discovered, apparently had about 20,000 inhabitants when it was destroyed by the great volcanic eruption of 1500 BC. Among the finds made at the site were the finest frescoes discovered in the Mediterranean region to that time, surpassing even those found at Knossos in Crete. Marinatos, educated at the universities of Athens, Berlin, and Halle, became professor at the University of Athens and inspector general of the archaeological services of Greece. He was the discoverer of the site of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) and the burial ground associated with the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). He wrote Crete and Mycenae (1959) and, beginning in 1968, a series of annual reports on the excavations at Thera.